


The Martyr

by Fancifullauren



Category: Les Misérables (1972), Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, I promise you, Introspection, M/M, There will be fluff, later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:52:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fancifullauren/pseuds/Fancifullauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the boys live, and have to deal with the aftermath of the revolution - all except Grantaire, presumed to be dead but in actuality living and trying desperately to relocate his friends.  Enjolras reflects upon how his friend died for him and not the revolution, and is consumed by guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Martyr

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by tumblr users the-power-of-enjolsass (AO3 nikkistrikesagain) and i-am-a-mocker. Enjoy! x

The blood ran down the crevices between the paving stones like rainwater in the hours after a storm. The hailstorm of bullets had long since ceased, leaving the tempest-tost to wander about, all the while weeping in anguish. Men and women scanned the faces of the living - the majority of those who had entered the battle, but still too few for anyone’s comfort - in search of their loved ones. Sometimes there would be cries of relief, followed by strong embraces and tears and kisses covering their faces. Others would call out into the crowd, seeing face after face of people they didn’t care about at all in the moment. They would continue calling out the names of their children, their lovers, their sisters and brothers, even after they had gone through the entire group of survivors, just in case they had missed them. They must have scanned over them, as there was no way all these boys could be alive while their own were dead. Or so they thought. Those individual screams, while far fewer than the choked shouts of jubilation, spoke louder than all of the rest combined as they grew more frantic with each passing second. 

Enjolras had already taken a head count of all his lieutenants: Combeferre and Courfeyrac had been by his sides throughout the entire last wave. Prouvaire, Feuilly, and Bahorel had then sought him out in the chaotic moments following the National Guard’s surrender, and the leader finally caught sight of Joly and Bossuet tearfully embracing Musichetta in the aftermath. 

Even though all his friends remained, his heart still felt hollow. Something was missing. All the adrenaline had left his system at this point. The gazes which held the fury of the family members of his unnamed followers, who had laid down their lives for his revolution, tore into him like the bullets they had taken. He shook his head in mourning. 

He looked down at his feet, seeing a young boy who couldn’t have been older than seventeen staring back up at him with lifeless eyes. In his right hand was an unloaded gun, and in his left, a flag. His neck had been torn open by a bayonet.

“Florent!” Came the shrill call of a disbelieving woman unwilling to come to terms with the death of her son. She knelt down to drag him into an awkward embrace, cradling his head against her chest. “Florent, Florent, I’m here; I’ve got you; you’re going to live; please don’t worry...” Her eyes were open and dry, staring off into the distance as she rocked back and forth, the head of the corpse lolling each time she did so, spilling more blood onto her already tattered dress. 

Combeferre took Enjolras’ hand as he stared, horrified, at the sight. 

“Doctor!” Cried the panicked woman on the ground, “my son is wounded, please, someone find me a doctor!” 

Her wails were drowned out in the chaos. 

Enjolras started to kneel down to comfort the woman, to inform her that her son is beyond the help of a doctor, but Combeferre pulled him up by his arm and somberly shook his head. 

\---

The next hour was filled with Enjolras looking on sadly as Bahorel and Bossuet physically restrained two hysterical women with fire in their eyes trying to attack him. They flailed uselessly against the solid men looking down upon them with sympathetic sadness. It physically pained Enjolras to see them acting out of such bloodlust. A grieving mother is not sympathetic towards someone who she pronounces guilty with the murder of her son. To them, Enjolras had earned the title of silver-tongued demon in one fateful battle by the fact that he had escaped with his life while others had not. 

The eight friends gathered in the back room of the Musain, standing in the empty room and looking at each other through sad eyes. Enjolras was the first to speak: 

“You have done well,” he pronounced at last, his voice stable and strong. He would not, under any circumstances, allow the pain to show on his face. “All of us have lived.” 

An angry Prouvaire stormed up to Enjolras. “Fool,” he spat, “Tell me, where is Grantaire?”

Enjolras’ face morphed into one of shock and realization. “Grantaire...” He whispered, trying to remember the last time he had seen the drunk. The last time he could remember seeing him was passed out drunk at the barricade, shortly before they were overrun and Enjolras had retreated into the Musain. 

He looked at the ground in disbelief. “What... what happened?” He ventured nervously. 

Combeferre moved to put his arm around Enjolras’ shaking shoulders as Bahorel recounted the events of earlier. 

\---

Feuilly was just handing off a loaded gun to Bahorel when they saw the National Guard overtake the barricade like a tidal wave. They slaughtered everyone in their path, so when Bahorel raised the gun to shoot, he was sure it counted: his bullet took out two guardsmen. When the second one fell, his bayonet caught the sleeve of one of his comrades, taking him down with him. Bahorel ran up to the wounded man and drove his bayonet into his face in turn. He proceeded to use the butt his gun as a blunt weapon on the approaching soldier behind him, then turn around to kick him in the groin. He took out two more soldiers before the others got the idea that he wasn’t one to be messed with. Having a few seconds to spare, Bahorel took stock of his surroundings. 

Grantaire was being trampled by guardsmen, but he was breathing. The lumbering man tried to lunge forward, but before he could get to him, two guards had begun dragging him off to the other side. It took all of Bahorel’s strength combined with the sudden influx of adrenaline to launch himself onto one of the guards. The other, however, had time to react, so he delivered a crushing blow to his skull, making the brute’s world go black. 

\---

Enjolras shuddered upon hearing Bahorel’s account. “He was captured by the soldiers;” he whispered to himself, “he didn’t believe in the revolution, but he died for it all the same.”

He took in a ragged breath, and Combeferre leaned over to whisper in his ear: “He did not die for the revolution. He died for you.” 

And with that, the tears began to fall. 

When Enjolras cried tears of grief and of shame, it wasn’t a grand, tragic spectacle. Salty tears rolled down his cheeks, and his lip trembled ever so slightly, pulling his face into a relatively unsightly grimace. Of course, the rest of the Amis followed their leader in breaking down as they all huddled together, shaking and breathing heavily, upon the floor.

\---

Grantaire awoke with the taste of blood and alcohol in his mouth. His head felt like it was being actively stabbed, and the rest of his body ached with a familiar searing pain. Beneath him he felt cold, hard ground and dirt. 

He coughed, before turning his head to the side to vomit. 

A grunt sounded from a few meters away. 

“Come on, there’s a bucket right next to you,” complained the voice of an exasperated young man. 

Grantaire blindly groped around until he felt a wooden rim, then pulled himself up so that he could finish emptying the contents of his stomach into the bucket. 

The sound of boots coming toward him barely echoed off of the close walls - so the drunk was in a small room, apparently - before he felt a hand on his back. “There, there,” he cooed, rubbing small, comforting circles. 

Grantaire whimpered. 

“Can I get you anything?” The kind voice asked again. Grantaire dared not put a face to the sound in fear of opening his eyes and being assaulted by the dim light he could see from behind his eyelids. 

After taking a few heavy breaths, he finally managed to choke out a single word - “water” - and the man went to go fetch it. They remained clenched even after the man had returned with a mug of room-temperature water that he greedily drank all of before leaning over the bucket again to throw it all back up. 

“I’ll go get you more,” he sighed, “but you’ll have to drink it slowly.” 

The only response Grantaire could manage was more groaning. 

This time, Grantaire took a small sip, then once his stomach was settled did he dare to look at what was around him. 

The fuzzy image of a young man, certainly not a day over 20, came into focus. He had short-cropped black hair, a full moustache, and a chubby face for his relatively muscular body. Grantaire scowled. “Where am I?” He deadpanned. 

“You’re at my home. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe here... for now, at least. You can’t stay here forever. Unless you’d like to, of course. Oh, what am I saying? I’m Guilhem Prevot, Infantryman of the National Guard of Louis Philippe. And you are?” 

Grantaire’s gaze hardened. “National Guardsman?” He asked. 

“Yes.” 

“And I’m in your house why?” 

“I... well, it’s a long story.” 

\---

Guilhem pulled Grantaire with all his might around the barricade, through all of his comrades. He watched as his friend Martin got pummeled in the face by some gigantic brute, and he had just enough time to smack him in the face with his gun. Martin would live. Guilhem had more pressing matters to attend to. 

Once safely far behind the onslaught, he dragged the unconscious man into the nearest building: an abandoned home without any furniture. He assessed the man for injury. Upon finding none, he was slightly perplexed. Surely this warrior, this revolutionary, would have some scars to show why he had been knocked unconscious? A whiff of the air made the questions’ answer obvious - he had been passed out drunk. _Lucky bastard,_ he thought with a bit of contempt before hauling him up onto his shoulders. 

When Guilhem finally made it back home, he deposited the unconscious man on the floor next to his bed and readied a bucket for him. 

\---

“That makes no sense,” Grantaire sighed, “why would you save me?” 

Guilhem rubbed a cold, wet cloth over his face, eliminating the traces of bile from his mouth. “I’ve never really agreed with the revolution-” he started, only to be interrupted by Grantaire. 

“Trust me, I know-” 

“-but you just seemed so innocent sleeping there, like a helpless child.” Grantaire scoffed at that, but Guilhem continued, sympathy showing on his face. “I couldn’t just let you die. All men are brothers, monsieur, and I couldn’t let you die there when you hadn’t even had a proper chance to fight. There is no honor in that. So I took you back here in order to nurse you back to health, God willing. I wasn’t going to let you die there.” 

“Why not save one of your brothers-in-arms?” 

Guilhem shrugged. “You seemed different.” 

 

“All men are the same. We’re pathetic, myself more so than the rest.” 

At this, Guilhem put his hand on the side of Grantaire’s face. “Do you really believe that? Do you really think that you’re less than your brothers?” 

“I know it,” he confirmed, leaning away from his touch. 

The man was only slightly taken aback. “Please, let me get you some bread to eat, and then we will talk of life and man and importance, alright?” 

\---

Over the next few weeks, Enjolras attended funeral after funeral of his fallen brothers. It was tremendously difficult, but he managed to speak at a few of them at the requests of their loved ones. He remained silent in the crowd, however, when an empty casket was lowered into the ground and Grantaire’s parents wept in each other’s’ arms. 

When he returned home, Combeferre and Courfeyrac accompanied him. It was only behind closed doors did he break down into anguished cries, ripping mugs out of the cabinets and throwing them on the floor. His guide and center just watched until their leader curled up on himself in a corner. 

They approached him. 

“Are you alright?” Combeferre asked, though all of them already knew the answer. 

“No.” 

Courfeyrac sighed. 

“He died for me, you say? He died for me and not my cause? Why would he do that? Why?” He gushed, voice cracking multiple times through the tears. 

“He loved you, Enjolras, with all his heart,” Courfeyrac breathed, running his hand down Enjolras’ arm. They stayed at his home well into the night, sharing stories of their supposedly fallen friend. Enjolras concluded that he had never treated the cynic fairly, and it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The day after his friend’s funeral, he received a letter from his parents.

 _Dearest son,_

_We have heard of your exploits in Paris, and we are relieved to hear that you are safe. However, we worry about you every day. I could not bear to lose my only son. I know you believe in your revolution with the whole of your heart, but please - for the sake of your mother and I - return home. You can still organize your change from here, but we miss you terribly, and to lose you would be a travesty from which I don’t think we would be able to recover. I swear to you, should you return to us, we will be completely supportive of every endeavor you choose to pursue._

_Please consider it. I ask this with the utmost level of respect and love._

_Yours,_  
 _Frédéric Enjolras_

It took Enjolras all of two seconds to ball up the letter and throw it out the window. Afterwards, however, he began to ponder. He thought back to all the stricken faces of the mothers - how their lives had been permanently ruined in one single night with the loss of their sons - and how it would affect his own dear mother if he were to be killed. It was always a dream of his to be killed defending his belovèd Patria, but at what cost? He was slowly beginning to realize that he would not be the only one broken by this revolution he was pursuing. 

That night, he packed all his meager belongings. 

The next day, he spoke to his friends in the back room of the Musain. 

“Dear friends, I speak to you today with a heavy heart-” it was beginning to sound like one of the funeral speeches he had given, “-and a deeply burdened mind. When I say that I did not make this decision lightly, know that I mean it with the entirety of my being. I am aware that what we experienced in June could be considered a victory, despite the loss of life we encountered. However, I have come to the realization that I am not the one impacted by my actions. I must return to the South of France.”

Everyone was shocked at the news. Feuilly shot out of his seat at once. “I will follow you!” He proclaimed. 

“As will I,” Combeferre vowed, rising to take his place with his leader. 

One by one, each of the Amis promised to accompany their leader back to the place where they had all, save Bahorel, grown up: Montpellier.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Written for the anonymous Les Mis kink meme prompt:**  
>  I want to see everyone's reaction to realizing that the only one who didn't believe in the cause was the one who died. Their feelings, their reactions. I want heart break. Pure gut wrenching, sob enduing heartbreak.
> 
> Bonus points:  
> -some one points out to Enjolras that Grantaire didn't die for the cause but for him.  
> -E/R somehow gets worked in
> 
> A million bonus bonus points  
> -you somehow make it a happy ending, maybe Grantaire didn't really die, and was in a coma of sorts, or maybe they meet in the after life.
> 
> Honestly I just want some Les Amis, E/R heartbreak.  
> Do you worst!
> 
>  
> 
> **There will be more of this in later chapters. Stay tuned! Feedback appreciated. x**


End file.
